A single hair strand found in a village on the island in 2019 found to be genetically belonging to subspecies
A group of men and children pose with a recently killed tiger in Malingping in Banten, West-Java in 1941. Photo: Wereldmuseum via Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 3.0 Could the Javan tiger still be around in the jungles of the island of Java in Indonesia? The tiger was extirpated on Indonesia’s main island (the most populous globally) and was declared extinct in 2008 by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. But now, a surprising finding has raised hopes.
A single hair found on a village fence in the west of the island in 2019 has been DNA-tested and has been found to be belonging to the extinct species, a study published by Indonesian researchers on March 21 has revealed.
The Javan tiger was endemic to the island, where it was “widespread in lowland forests, thickets and community gardens in the 18th and 19th centuries”.
The animal was hunted as “a pest” by colonial authorities in the Dutch East Indies (as Indonesia was known then). Its habitat was converted for agricultural use and infrastructure, the study noted.
“The last positive confirmed sighting of the Javan tiger was in Meru Betiri National Park, East Java, in 1976,” it added.
Read Panthera Tigris: The puzzle that is tiger taxonomy
However, of late, there had been occasional anecdotal reports of encounters with the animal in various locations on Java. The study listed Banjarnegara, Kuningan, Mount Prau, Meru Betiri, Baluran National Park and the Sukabumi Cikepuh Wildlife Reserve.
In some cases, there had been alleged sightings of tigers. Otherwise, pugmarks bigger than those of Javan leopards had been seen. There had also been reports of possible predation on livestock.
“The last survey for the subspecies was in 1999-2000 in Meru Betiri National Park, East Java, with 35 camera traps. No tigers were found, but some prey species and many poachers were recorded,” according to the study.
It was on August 18, 2019, that Ripi Yanur Fajar (a local resident and conservationist) reported seeing a Javan tiger in a community plantation near the village of Cipendeuy in the forest of South Sukabumi, West Java.
Fajar reported it to Kalih Raksasewu, one of the authors of the study. Raksasewu visited the site on August 27.
“He found a hair, potentially of a tiger, on a fence where an animal had apparently jumped between a village road and a plantation. He and Bambang Adryanto (a local Forest Research and Development Department employee) then discovered footprints and claw marks that could be of a tiger, potentially corroborating the observation,” the study noted.
Read Blame Stamford Raffles: How the British ended the Malayan tiger’s reign over Singapore
The hair strand eventually was forwarded to the Indonesian government’s West Java Nature Conservation Authority (BKSDA).
The BKSDA, in turn, submitted the strand to the Biology Research Centre–National Research and Innovation (BRIN) for genetic analysis.
The researchers also conducted an in-depth interview with Ripi Yanur Fajar from June 15-19, 2022 at the site where the hair was found.
The strand was analysed and compared to hair from a Javan tiger specimen in Museum Zoologicum Bogoriense, collected in 1930. Hairs from the Javan leopard and other tiger subspecies were also used in the genetic analyses.
“From this comprehensive mtDNA analysis we conclude that the hair sample from South Sukabumi belongs to the Javan tiger, and that it falls in the same group as the Javan tiger museum specimen collected in 1930. Whether the Javan tiger actually still occurs in the wild needs to be confirmed with further genetic and field studies,” the researchers concluded.
In 2017, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature Cat Specialist Group revised the taxonomy of the tiger into two groups: Those on the Asian mainland were Panthera tigris tigris and those in the Sunda (Indonesian archipelago) islands were Panthera tigris sondaica.
Before that, there were nine tiger subspecies: Caspain, Amur, Bengal, South China, Indochinese, Malayan, Sumatra, Java and Bali.
Is the Javan tiger Panthera tigris sondaica extant? DNA analysis of a recent hair sample was published in the Oryx journal.
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